voodoo

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A religion practiced chiefly in Caribbean countries, especially Haiti, syncretized from Roman Catholic ritual elements and the animism and magic of slaves from West Africa, in which a supreme God rules a large pantheon of local and tutelary deities, deified ancestors, and saints, who communicate with believers in dreams, trances, and ritual possessions. Also called vodoun.
2. n. A charm, fetish, spell, or curse holding magic power for adherents of voodoo.
3. n. A practitioner, priest, or priestess of voodoo.
4. n. Deceptive or delusive nonsense.
5. v. To place under the influence of a spell or curse; bewitch.
6. adj. Of or relating to the beliefs or practices of voodoo.
7. adj. Based on unrealistic or delusive assumptions: voodoo economics.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A common name among creoles and in many of the southern United States for any practicer of malicious, defensive, amatory, healing, or soothsaying enchantments, charms, witchcrafts, or secret rites, especially when they are tinctured with African superstitions and customs; especially, one who makes such practices a business.
2. n. The same title transferred by voodoos to a personal evil spirit supreme among evil powers.
3. n. plural The practicers of voodoo rites as a collective body.
4. Pertaining to or associated with the superstitions and peculiar practices of the voodoos: as, a voodoo dance (a violent indecent dance belonging to the secret nocturnal ceremonies of the voodoos); a voodoo doctor, or voodoo priest (the terms most commonly used in creole countries for any professional voodoo); voodoo king or queen (the person who, by a certain vague election and tenure, holds for life a local preëminence and some slight, authority over all voodoos of the surrounding country).
5. To affect by voodoo conjuration or charms.

Wiktionary

1. n. A religion of the Ewe/Fon of West Africa, practiced chiefly in Benin.
2. n. Any of a group of related religious practices found chiefly in and around the Caribbean, particularly in Haiti and Louisiana.
3. n. Any sort of magical or irrational approach to a problem.
4. v. To enchant someone or something using voodoo

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. See voodooism.
2. n. One who practices voodooism; a negro sorcerer.
3. adj. Of or pertaining to voodooism, or a voodoo.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a charm superstitiously believed to embody magical powers
2. n. a religious cult practiced chiefly in Caribbean countries (especially Haiti); involves witchcraft and animistic deities
3. v. bewitch by or as if by a voodoo
4. n. (Haiti) followers of a religion that involves witchcraft and animistic deities